The FWord
by StargateChloe
Summary: The gang plus Claudia make it back to the original time-line.  Claudia/Fargo/Julia plus Jo/Julia  friendship .
1. Chapter 1

Jo entered Julia's lab, armed and ready.

"You are so going down, Girl!" Jo proclaimed.

"Don't be so sure about that, Sister. I've been preparing."

"You ready to go to the mat?"

"You bet!"

They went into a small office where there was a scrabble board on a small mat.

"You know, I could bring a small card table in here." Jo offered.

"I highly doubt it would fit. Anyway, the running score is you: 349, me 334. But I am so catching up today."

"Yeah, right."

"You forget, Girl: I know all kinds scientific terms that you don't. So there." Julia stuck her tongue out.

"So why am I ahead?"

Later on….

"You so did not!"

"I swear, my first crush was on Commander Data." Julia said as they both continued cackling. "What about you? Who was your first crush?"

Jo blushed. "Promise not to tell anyone?" Jo asked.

"Okay, I promise."

Jo gave Julia a doubtful look at first. "I mean, this is top secret. Zane doesn't even know."

"Okay, cross my heart and hope to die." Julia said, making the appropriate gestures.

Jo took a deep breath. "Okay, up until I was about fourteen, I was obsessed with my older cousin. He was eighteen years older than me. He was a cop." Jo started to trail off, having a very nostalgic look on her face.

"Is that when you decided to go into law enforcement?" Julia asked,.

Jo nodded. "I'd listen to the stories he told about the field. It seemed so cool and exciting." Jo kept smiling. Then, she slowly came out of it. "So, what made you want to go into science?"

Julia took a deep breath, as she too was about to reveal something very private and personal about herself. Then, she decided against it. "It was my favorite subject in school." She said with a shrug.

Jo was slightly confused at Julia's response. But before she could say anything, Julia decided to change the subject.

"Hey, I've finished developing your wedding present." Julia said enthusiastically as she got a small piece of cloth out of a drawer and handed it to Jo.

"Um, thanks?" Jo said taking the piece of cloth. She looked at it curiously. "So, uh?"

Julia laughed. "It's a special cloth. You see-" She continued giggling.

"Well?" Jo asked, bewildered at Julia's mirth.

Finally, Julia calmed herself down a little. "Okay, well, it's special fabric." She gulped. "You see, when a person is um," she let out another little giggle, "sexually aroused, the body releases pheromones. The fibers in the cloth dissolve when in contact with these pheromones."

Jo smirked. "This is really going to be popular with the guys. When did you come up with it?"

"The first time that Fargo and I-" Julia couldn't finish the sentence. She looked as though she was going to cry. After a couple seconds, she recovered. "Anyway, if you want to just bring me a design, I'll make your dress. I'm actually a pretty good seamstress."

"Thanks." Jo smiled.

Later on, at Café Diem, Julia was sipping a smoothie when Joe walked in with a great big smile on her face.

Julia got up and headed toward the back corner, taking her drink with her and nodding for Jo to follow. Thankfully, it was rather late in the afternoon, so Café Diem was rather empty. Jo ordered a smoothie and then followed Julia. They found a nice little booth and sat down, both of them scanning to room to make sure that no one was paying attention.

"So, did it work?" Julia asked eagerly.

"Oh, yeah." Jo replied as she took a sip. "There was a bit of a tingling sensation as it melted. It threw me off balance, and I kinda…."

"What?" Julia asked, both confused and curious.

"Well, I sorta, accidentally knocked Zane in the groin."

"Ewwww." Julia said as both women started laughing. "You do realize that you're going to need that stuff for the wedding night, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't-" Jo suddenly stopped talking as she saw Julia's face fall. The deputy followed the lab tech's gaze.

"Aprez-vous, m'lady." Fargo said as he held the door open for Claudia.

"Merci, Miseur." Claudia said as she stepped in.

Julia looked down at her naked wrist. "Oh, no! I gotta run. I'm late for um, a meeting. Yep, a meeting. Bye." She gathered up her stuff and ran out the door.

Jo rolled her eyes as picked up her drink and headed out herself.

"Hey, Deputy Loop-de-loop!" Claudia greeted her.

Jo gritted her teeth. "Hi, Claudia." was all Jo could muster while still fighting the urge to take the little punk out. One more snide remark, and thirty to life just might be worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

About twenty minutes later, Jo showed up on Julia's doorstep with a carton of wine coolers, an extra large pizza, and a two pints of Death by Chocolate ice cream. "Julia, it's me."

Julia opened the door. Her eyes were red and puffy, and Jo could see that her apartment was not quite as neatly kept as it usually was. "Come on in." Julia said, stepping out of the doorway and motioning her arm. "What's all this?" Julia asked.

"Wallowing food." Jo put her parcels on the coffee table. "You got paper towels?"

"What do you mean 'wallowing food'?"

"Oh, come on, you've never had a pig out session after going through a painful breakup?"

Julia shook her head. "Actually, this is my first breakup. My first relationship, really. Up until now, it's always been books before boys."

"I see. So, how did that meeting go?"

"Well, um- it went fine."

"There wasn't really a meeting, was there."

Julia was totally dumbfounded. "How did you know?"

"Oh, please. It's not like I've never used that old trick whenever the guy who dumped me and his new squeeze enter the room."

"You've been dumped before?" Julia was shocked.

"Oh, don't give me that." Jo rolled her eyes. "Anyway, you got any paper towels or what?"

"Yeah." Julia went into the kitchen and got a roll of paper towels, two plates, two spoons, and two glasses with ice in them and sat back down on the sofa with Jo. "This is really nice, Jo. Thank you."

"No problem. Everyone needs a buddy when going through something like this." Jo said as she helped herself to a couple slices and poured herself a glass.

"I donno. I guess I always kinda felt that one day, Fargo would find someone else and drop me like a hot rock. I mean, any guy would be crazy to pick me over Claudia." Julia said as she followed suit.

"Are you kidding? Have you actually met her? She's got one of the biggest egos I have ever seen, and even Zoe Carter has better manners than her."

"You don't have to hate her just because Fargo dumped me for her. You know that, don't you?"

"Oh, trust me: it goes much deeper than that." Jo said right before taking a bit.

"What do you mean?"

Jo held up her index finger as she finished chewing, took a drink of soda, and then proceeded to answer Julia's question. "I grew up here in Eureka. Even though it stopped being a military base in the 70s, there was a strong military presence. My dad got stationed here, so I got the pleasure of attending Archimedes High School." Jo flashed Julia a sarcastic smile. "Everyone else, especially the other girls, were so smug about their abilities. This one group of girls in my chemistry class used to taunt me because while they were coasting through the class and making A's, and I was sweating and going to the teacher every day after school just to get a C. And then, they would just go on and on and on about how special female scientists were and how other girls just sucked. They even had a slogan for every time the teacher asked me a question: 'Jo doesn't know.' It was so humiliating."

"I'm sorry you went through all that. Sounds like it was a bit of a role reversal from how it usually is."

"Oh, definitely. Jocks were lower that scum here. They used to also call me D.J.; it stood for Dumb Jock."

"That's really mean."

"Yeah." Jo sighed as she mentally relived those horrible days.

"So, how come you like hanging out with me so much?" Julia asked. "I'm a female scientist."

"Yeah, but you're not all smug about it like Claudia and her type are. You just do what you do and accept that other people's talents lie in other areas."

"Well, maybe. But you have to admit, Claudia being smart, pretty, and able to handle a gun does make her more desirable to Fargo."

"Yeah, but you've got a better personality."

"Maybe…." Julia trailed off. "Anyway, why don't you tell me more about what happened in the alternate reality. How did you guys get back?"

"Okay…." Jo took a rather big gulp of soda before continuing. "Well, at this point in the game, everyone except Henry had pretty much given up on ever returning home."

"_You still fooling around with that thing?" I asked Henry as I entered his garage. "You do realize that just about everyone else has given up on every going home, don't you?"_

"_Yes, but I haven't. We got here. There must be a way of getting us back."_

"_Does anyone else in the group know what you're doing?"_

"_No, and neither does Grace. It's vital that you keep this a secret, okay?"_

"_Okay, why?"_

"_Because Alison, Fargo, and Jack have all decided that it's best that we stay here. However, I worry that if and when the 'us' of this reality show up, people will find out, and who knows what kind of trouble we'll be in then. Besides, don't you want to get back to say 'yes' to Zane?"_

"_How did you know?"_

"_Carter told me."_

_I blushed and then shook my head. "I thought that we needed solar flares to use the transmitter, and that the next round wasn't for another eleven years."_

"_I thought so too, but then, I read one of the scientific journals that Grace had out on the coffee table. As it turns out, in this reality, solar flare storms of a magnitude to power the transmitter happen once every three years not once every eleven."_

"_Interesting. So, when's the next one?"_

"_That's the best part! The next round happens in just three days!"_

"_That's great! But there's a down side, isn't there?"_

"_Unfortunately, all the phones are linked together, and in order for one to work, all five of them have to be tuned in."_

"_In other words, it's all or none, right?"_

"_Exactly. And Alison doesn't want to leave because she wants to get to know non-Autistic Kevin better, and Fargo wants to stay here because he's enjoying being in charge at GD too much."_

"_What about you? Don't you enjoy being here and being married to Grace?"_

"_I do. I mean, she's wonderful, but that's not the point. The point is that we do not belong here. We belong in our own timeline."_

"_True. So, how does Carter feel about all this."_

"_I haven't told him yet. He still thinks we're just stuck here. And for right now, I'd like to keep it that way, so I would like to keep this between us. Understood?"_

"_Understood." I nodded._


End file.
